Insert - Numbers Lock - Scroll - Do
you know what all those keys on the keyboard are used for? This
Tech Tip will tell you about these three keys
(albeit, not very useful ones) that youve been looking at for years
and what they are used for.

The Insert Key

In Microsoft
Word (or Excel), when you press the Insert Key, it
puts the keyboard in overstrikemode.
That means that as you type, it will overstrike (or type over) any
characters to the right. In Insertmode,
it inserts any letters you type  it does not overstrike or replace
letters to the right, but pushes them over as you type.

The Insert
Key is a togglekey which means
that each time you press the key, it switches
between overstrike and insert mode. Try this  open
MicrosoftWord. Then press the
InsertKey while looking at the
bottom of the screen. You will see the letters OVR
become bold. Press it again, and you will see the
OVR become dim.

Sometimes you
might accidentally press the Insert Key and then you notice that you
are typingover (overstriking) the
text that you previously type. Wow  what a pain. Well, you can
buy an Insert Key Safety Cover to help prevent
that from happening. (NO YOU CANT  Im just
kidding  there is no such thing). The truth of the matter is,
I dont know who invented the Insert Key  but it is one of the
dumbest keys on the keyboard. Does anyone ever use it? I certainly
dont!

The
Numbers Lock Key (Num Lk)

This key does
just what it says  it locks the numbers in the
numeric keypad. The numeric keypad is the set of
keys on the rightside of the
keyboard. Its the keys that have all the numbers on them. (I
suppose you figured that out). Laptops dont
have numeric keypads  what a shame! Those number keys on the
numeric keypad can also be used as function keys
 like Arrow Keys, Page Up and Page Down Keys, Home and End keys,
etc.

The Num Lk
key is also a togglekey. When
you press it once, the numbers are activated. When
you press it again, the functionkeys
are activated. On a full sized keyboard with a numeric keypad,
there is not much use for the Num Lk key because
all those function keys are duplicated on the keyboard in other
locations. And  no  there is no Num Lk Safety Cover.

But here is
something you can do. You can set your computer to make a
sound (beep) when you press this key. Go to Start,
point to Settings, point to ControlPanels, then Click on AccessibilityOptions. Click on the KeyboardTab. In the ToggleKeys
section, click on the little box next to Toggle Keys. This will
activate a sound each time you press the Num Lk Key  as well as the
other toggle keys  the Caps Lock key and the Scroll Lock key. So
even though the Num Lk key is also a dumb idea, at least you can set
your computer to beep when you accidentally press it  thats nice.

The
Scroll Lock Key (Scroll Lk)

The
Scroll Lock key has been around since the flood - well
maybe not that early. But it was on the earliest IBM keyboards 
and it had a good purpose. It would scroll through a document.
Well, there is not much use for it anymore because we have arrow
keys that do the same thing. And we have a scroll wheel on the
mouse that does the same thing.

There are
some programs that actually use the Scroll Lk key. Well  actually
theres only one that I know of. Microsoft Excel makes use of this
key. With the Scroll Lk key activated, you can
press the arrow keys and the spreadsheet document will immediately
start to scroll  without moving the pointer from the active cell.
So the active cell remains active when you scroll with the arrow
keys.

The Scroll Lk
key has an LEDindicator  a
little light that turns on when you press it. What a great idea  a
little visual reminder to tell you that you just pressed a
uselesskey on the keyboard. Well, this
is another key that could easily be dropped from the keyboard, but
it is nice to know what it is for even if you will never use it.